Texas Mead Fest-- anyone going?

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I am 3 hours from lake Texhoma. Would need to look up how. Far into Texas that is and see if I can take a ride down.
 
All depends on kickoff times that day. Would like to stop by and see how things are going.

Unfortunately, I'm too new to mead making to have anything to enter, but hope to next year.

@Arpolis, Rohan Meadery is southeast of Austin. I think about 45min if I remember correctly.
 
If I can talk my husband into it. Mead isn't his thing but he will probably agree.
 
Well, how'd you do? Were there a lot of people?

Well, I didn't win anything but it was quite the learning experience. I tasted some really good meads and some really bad ones. I did get to taste a 3rd place mead and now can see what the judges are looking for, very mellow, almost too mellow, it almost tasted weak to me, but it wasn't too sweet nor too dry.

Since this was Rohan's first rodeo, I think they learned alot. There were too many entries for the amount of judges present so they had to use volunteers. They didn't have enought cork screws, seating and tables for judges, even pens and pencils. They were just overwhelmed by the amount of entries, I was told there were about 100.

I thought there were quite a few people but I really don't know how to judge. It looked like about 100+ cars in the lot, so estimating 2+ persons per car, maybe 200 to 300 hundred people? Towards the afternoon one meadery started to run out of several of the more popular meads. One of the meadery's had their meads on tap, including a bochet, which I did not care for but the guy in line ahead of me said it tasted wonderful.

I guess the best thing I learned was not to put any labels on my bottles. The first thing they did is rip them off and throw them away. I was shocked, I had put a fair few hours into the labels. lol Seriously, the best thing I came away with was just the diverse tastes in meads people have, from sweet to extremely dry, yeasty to bochets. Everyone has their favorites no matter what.
 
MeadWitch summed it up well. Although, my husband and I actually liked the bochet. I doubt we'd be willing to boil a good raw honey to that degree to achieve the taste though. Glad the meadery is nearby so we can pick up a bottle when we are in the mood for a smokey mead flavor. We enjoyed most of Rohan's & Enchanted Manor's meads but found Dancing Bee's meads much too sweet for our taste. They had a nice one made of merlot grapes but I figured, what's the point if you can just buy a merlot wine that taste the same. We enjoyed the Mead Fest and got a good idea of what we want to shoot for in our own meads since we are fairly new at it. It was also very entertaining to watch the crowd that it drew. An incredible variety of people! Look forward to seeing how it evolves next year.
 
Argh! Forgot to check back in here before I left, if so I'd have known to look for folks! Overall, the event was far more successful than the organizers expected or planned for--they were pretty overwhelmed. Who knew there were so many mead fans in Texas? I entered a couple of bottles. My fig melomel made it to the second round but didn't place (too hot and the alcohol overwhelmed the delicate fig flavors). Will try again next year. I think this thing's going to have staying power.

Here's a more extensive writeup on my blog: Texas Mead Fest 2012
 
The 2nd annual Texad Mead Fest is quickly approaching! This year the mead fest is in SeguinTexas on September 28, 2013 from 11am to 7pm. The event will be alongside the Seguin Trade Days with live music, food vendors and of course MEAD! Taste the mead from all the Texas Meaderies plus meet those who entered into the homebrew mead competition! Purchase the tickets online before the event for $5 off door price. An awesome event you dont wanna miss ! TexasMead.org
 
It was a bit crazy trying to do the comp all in one day! I was handed the opportunity to organize the comp AFTER it was announced that we would be doing everything the day of. There were 66 entries (we expected maybe half that, max) and had to be entered, then sorted and then I had to go find judges (from entrants and people in the crowd) and make sure they werent judging their own, and find tables and everything else that goes with it! It is now a BJCP comp and Ill feel much better that its not being judged outside in the heat, and no looky-loos milling around eyeballing their wax-covered weird shaped bottle to see how judges react. LOL

Today is the last day for entries (so Im not really pitching that today). We have 76 entries as of right now and WONT be judging the lion's share AT the Texas Mead Fest. About a 10% increase over last year, so Im okay with that. I guess some were either put off by the new BJCP rules (3x 12oz vs one 750mL), but more people from the local homebrew teams are entering (I tried to get the wine guilds and beekeepers associations involved too).
 

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